I couldn't do anything else for attention. I couldn't sing, I wasn't athletic or physically attractive. But I was funny, so I could go up on an open mic night and tell five minutes of masturbation jokes the same way a fat girl goes up and does karaoke.

What was your big breakthrough?

Not having to work for a living. Back when I was young, with a mullet and a piece-of-shit car, going on stage for 30 minutes and 100 bucks: that was success.

You've often been accused of being controversial in your choice of material. Do you set out to shock?

You say it like being controversial is a crime. Honestly, the controversy is you [the media]. People go, "Oh, you got into trouble for some things you said." No – you wrote that I got into trouble; maybe one guy got mad at a joke, but that happens at every show. At my last show in Cincinnati, I had someone walk out because I made a passing, flippant reference to Syria. I was like, you've sat through [jokes about] rape and paedophilia, and that made you walk out?

Do you suffer for your art?

I hate doing it a lot, but even poor, suffering people in our western culture aren't really suffering. And look at people like Charles Bukowski and Hunter S Thompson: I'd rather sell shoes than live that kind of lifestyle. When it comes to properly hard living, I'm a pedestrian.

What's the worst thing anyone ever said about you?

The ones that bother me the most are the media saying, "He's like the next Bill Hicks." It's supposed to be complimentary, but then all these Bill Hicks fans show up thinking you're going to be like him, and then go, "You're no Bill Hicks." And I'm like, "I never wanted to try to be like him, I don't think I'm anything like him at all, and now you're mad at me for not being him because a journalist didn't have a better reference."

Which other artists do you most admire?

The ones that quit. Take [comedian] Dave Chappelle and [American football player] Ricky Williams: at the top of their game, when they were having the most money thrown at them, they said, "Keep the money. This is just not how I want to live."

What's the most difficult heckle you ever got?

You can't throw superlatives at me: it's been a long career. But over here, the problem with the heckling is that you use your own vernacular, and I don't know whether you're being nice or mean. I remember at one of the first shows I did in Edinburgh, some guy just kept screaming: "Scull it, scull it!" Somebody else had to spell out for me that he meant I should drink my beer.

Born: Worcester, Massachusetts, 1967.

Career: Has performed at festivals around the world and on TV shows such as The Man Show and Girls Gone Wild. Performs at the Waterside theatre, Aylesbury, tonight, then tours. Details: dougstanhope.com.

Low point: "Success."

High point: "Living out of my car in the early days, just doing it for fun. The more business gets involved, the less fun it is."

• This article was amended on 7 March 2012. The original photo caption referred to the Lowry bridge. This has been corrected.